How To Get Your Indie Game On The Steam Platform

Let’s face it, Steam’s reach is beyond compare. The platform boasts millions of active players, and if you happen to get your game on the platform, you’re in for a good time. The awesome people at Steam have been generous enough to offer the Greenlight service, which bridges the gap between developing a game and selling to the masses. However, before throwing your game into the ring, there’s a few things that you’ll need to know.

Most games on Greenlight are either absolutely terrible, or not polished or professional enough to even warrant a hint of consideration for players. RPG Maker games with stock sprites, mobile games, and games with rudimentary graphics are always immediately shunned by the Greenlight voting community. Here’s a list of several do’s an don’ts that’ll help keep your game’s greenlight campaign stand out from the rest of the mediocrity on Greenlight.

DO

Utilize the immense power of social media
It may go without saying, but at the very least, your landing page, Twitter account, and Facebook account should be set up and grown organically months before you launch your Greenlight campaign. This way, you can leverage your fan base in order to get the traction that you’ll need to drive voters to your page.

DO

Produce a video that shows off the best aspects of your game

Don’t bother with the formal introductions and get straight to the point. Let the gameplay speak for itself. Feel free to add neat transitions, voiceovers, and other neat video production magic that’ll make your game stand out. Not very good with Sony Vegas? Use Windows Movie Maker!

DO

Run a marketing campaign alongside your game’s Greenlight debut

While Steam Greenlight does drive a fair amount of traffic on it’s own, nothing beats a well executed marketing campaign. Reach out to your marketing friends in the industry, purchase paid advertising on networks such as Facebook and Twitter, send out press releases or hire someone to do it for you.

DON’T

Use terrible programmer art and justify its usage

Your trailer and screenshots should be representative of what the final product will look like. There’s nothing more hideous than a game that looks like it was slapped together in MS Paint. Would Braid have been even remotely as successful if it had been shipped with programmer art? Not a chance. If you can’t draw to save your life, find an artist or use a sprite pack!

DON’T

Bore your potential fans with walls of dull description text

The very first few lines should be a very well written and succint summary of your game. Start with a bit of backstory, followed by one engaging gameplay feature. Then, finish up with a strong selling point. After this summary should be a bulleted list of the game’s core features, and dont forget to link to your social media networks.

DON’T

Submit your game before the core gameplay loop is complete

If your product is just a cube running around a flat plane with nothing exciting going on, you probably shouldn’t be releasing it. Same goes if your project is just a generic and lifeless space shooter with nothing really going for it. If you show the public a sub-par game, you’re going to get sub-par results. As rule, try to get one level of your game extremely polished before even considering putting it on Greenlight and embarrassing yourself.